Bedside Manner
by Raven-Rach
Summary: An insight into the emotions Jace keeps pent up. On Clary's insistence, Jace goes to visit Jocelyn in the hospital... But does it go as well as Clary would have expected? Is that hostility and bitterness I detect? Slight Jace/Clary- Oneshot.


_This is a oneshot about Jace and his views on his "parents"- quite bitter and shows what is in my opinion Jace's deeper emotions. Very, very minor hints of Jace/Clary. Just a little drabble I did to avoid doing Maths homework!! Enjoy, let me know what you think =]_

**Disclaimer- Everything belongs to the very talented legend that is Cassandra Clare. If I was half as talented as she is, I would be twice as talented as I am! (Hee hee, Dorothea Logic!!)**

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It was a regular sight in a hospital. A woman lying prone on a bed with a young man sat beside her. Her name was Jocelyn Fray, his was Jace. Just Jace. Over time he had been given surnames- but each held a different definition of a piece of him, and none could begin to describe him as a whole.

Anyway, he had often reasoned with himself, what is in a name? It didn't change who he was and didn't help anyone- not least himself- to determine who he was deep down.

Jocelyn Fray had magnificently flaming red hair. Each separate curling lock that was spread out around her head contrasted sharply with the crisp and starched white sheets of the hospital bed. Tiny silver specks scarred her ghostly pale skin and her long lashes cast smouldering shadows on her cheeks.

The boy slumped in the wicker chair at her side was completely different. His golden hair glinted when the light peeking through the shutters caught it and his black clothes looked out of place in the shockingly white room. Even though Jace had never spoken to the woman in the bed, he knew that she would hate the lack of colour. Jocelyn Fray was an artist. She had once been married to a man named Valentine Morgenstern. Once she had been a Shadowhunter like Jace. She had one daughter named Clarissa who was most commonly known as Clary. And that was all that Jace knew- besides one other key fact.

Jocelyn Fray was his mother.

The hospital made him uncomfortable. Sitting beside a comatose person on his own and being expected to talk to her made him uncomfortable. To deal with this awkwardness, Jace fidgeted with the ring on his finger and slouched in on himself in his chair as though willing himself to disappear. And Jace never slouched. Soldiers were meant to stand straight- and he was one of the best there were. Sure, he had been here before with Clary on her insistence- but that was different. Now he was on his own.

"So… yeah… here I am." Ugh, Jace shook his head in disgust- when had he lost all his eloquence and wit? "How is life as a vegetable treating you these days, Jocelyn?"

The heavy silence greeted him, jeering and teasing.

"I can't call you Mother… I'm sorry. You, you're a stranger Jocelyn. Maybe I'm your son, but that doesn't really mean anything, does it? No offence, but I wouldn't even be here today if it wasn't for Clary. She said I should talk to you, apparently you might be able to hear me. You did a good job with Clary by the way… a great job… She's the kind of kid you want, Jocelyn. You could never be a mother to me like you are to her, it wouldn't work and I probably wouldn't let you."

There was no sound bar the beeping and clicking of various machines and the breathy sounds of inhalations followed by soft exhaling.

"I hope you are proud of her, Jocelyn. You should be. Clary- she's strong and beautiful and artistic, talented, everything a mother could ever want in a daughter. But me- I don't think you would be proud of me."

Jace paused to bury his hands in his unruly hair. "Clary said you missed me. You grieved for me and mourned me. That you had a lock of my hair in a little box and it made you cry sometimes. Now she thinks that you are going to wake up and be overjoyed to see me, once you realise that I'm not dead. But Clary is wrong, isn't she Jocelyn? Because the baby you knew still is dead- I'm not an innocent child, I am not the kind of child a parent would be proud of. I don't have well rounded manners, I don't help old ladies cross the street, I don't do any of that stuff. But I think you could get past that, couldn't you, Jocelyn? You could still accept me if they were the only things you had to worry about."

The boy with hair the colour of ripe corn finally took his butterscotch eyes off the ground beneath him and looked at the motionless figure upon the bed.

"Those aren't the only things though, Jocelyn. You see, what you would have the most trouble accepting is that I am my father's son. Remember him, Jocelyn? Valentine, the man you loved enough to marry. The man you hated enough to run away from, to discard you life and flee your home. He raised me, Jocelyn. And while I may not be able to call you 'Mother', I have always called him 'Father.' It would make your blood curdle then freeze, and your stomach tie up in knots. You see, unlike you, I still can't find it in myself to hate that man- monster or not.

"When you envisioned the person your son Jonathon could have become, you never ever imagined that he would be Jace the Shadowhunter. You never thought that his father would have had any influence on his life. But Valentine did, Jocelyn, he raised me. He raised me to be his child, to be the person I am today. And that person is nothing of yours. I'm pretty sure you could never love that person and I'm pretty sure he could never love you."

Jace pulled up his sleeves with frantic eyes, exposing the black, swirling, tattoo-like patterns that marred his flesh. "Do you see that Jocelyn? My Marks?" he demanded as though the comatose woman could view them through her closed eyes. "When was the last time you picked up your stele? When did you last Mark yourself? Quite the Mundie you have become Jocelyn. Hiding your own heritage and concealing it from your daughter. She knows now, though. You can't protect her or lie to her anymore- she has a destiny and no matter how much you tried, it caught up to her."

The boy with the desperate sounding voice leant over the bed to get closer to the woman shrouded by blankets and coppery curls. "Would you hate me for it, Jocelyn? Would you hate that I brought your daughter into this world of ours? Would you hate that darling little Jonathon Christopher became one of the strongest Shadowhunters of his generation? I think you probably would- see what I mean? You could never be proud of me- a cocky Shadowhunter who grew up tainted by his father.

"But Jocelyn, you could never hate Clary for it. Never. She needs you and I swear on the Angel that if you ever loved her any bit less for accepting who she is, I would make you regret it." Jace gave a short bark of laughter. "You see, Jocelyn, I'm not a nice little boy at all. Nice little boys like Baby Jonathon Christopher don't threaten their mothers. That's what you have to understand, Jocelyn- you have to get it into your head that that's not who I am. I'm Jace! I'm not loveable and I'm not loving."

He sat back in the chair once more with a deep sigh and tilted back his head to look at the white ceiling. Being in this room was like being in a pot of alabaster. The white walls closed in on the young Nephilim and made him want to run from them, screaming all the way.

"To love is to destroy," he muttered to himself.

"Did you hear that, Jocelyn?" he said a little louder and facing her once more. "To love is to destroy. The greatest lesson my father ever taught me. What a charmer he must have been when you guys were together- or was it only after you left that he took on that mindset? To love someone is to give them the power to destroy you and trust them not to. Trust rarely lasts. Love destroys."

He sighed wearily and ran his cold hands over his face. "But you have to keep on loving Clary, she needs it. You raised her right, Jocelyn. You didn't raise her the way she should have been raised, you didn't raise her as a Shadowhunter, but you raised her right. You raised her to be loveable. You aren't the only one who loves her you know… there's Simon, Luke, me… not that I should love her. At least not in the way I do- because it will end up destroying me."

The chair screeched on the floor as the Shadowhunter rose from his seat and pushed it backwards. For a few moments he stood still just staring at the woman in the bed. When he spoke his voice was so low that it could have been a whisper.

"Sometimes I wish you wouldn't wake up, Jocelyn. I wish you wouldn't wake up because I know that when you do you'll take her from us. You will take my Clary from me and leave me broken and destroyed. But maybe I'm destroyed already, eh? In your eyes Valentine managed to do that a long time ago. I'm not what you wanted Jocelyn, and Clary refuses to accept it… but we both know it's true.

"I'm leaving now Jocelyn, I'm not coming back. I came here for Clary, not you. I don't know you. You won't be alone though, Clary will be back again and again. She wants you to wake up more then anything else, and if you don't you'll ruin her. So for Clary's sake I hope you will wake up, but for my own I'll wish that you stay in this bed forever. Just so that I can be Valentine's selfish son and have her to myself. And so that Clary won't have to leave me and destroy me like you destroyed my father." His voice seemed to break with the heavy truths of his own words, and for some time all he could do was stand rooted to the spot looking at the pallid face emerging from the lump of blankets.

Outside the door, hidden by glamour in the corridor, stood a petite Shadowhunter girl with emerald eyes and hair like fire. Hastily she shoved the stele back into her pocket. She had used to draw a rune upon the hospital door- a rune that allowed her to eavesdrop on the conversation with perfect clarity. Blinking away salty tears, Clarissa Fray ran from the hospital before her brother could discover she was there. Isabelle had been right: Jace never lied, and one shouldn't listen in unless one was prepared for the horrible pain truth could bring.


End file.
